Realtonemix R has been developed by Hampshire-based ringtone provider Symbios Group.

It will allow record companies independent labels and individual artists to showcase and sell Realtones direct to the consumer.

Symbios said the product also shows that there can be distribution of any music industry-approved track from any artist or record catalogue across any genre to any Realtone playing handset anywhere in the world.

Orange has partnered with production company Somethin Else and Woolworths music chart Hit40uk to provide access to chart ringtones truetones full-track downloads and video through its Orange World WAP portal.

Orange users can also interact with the studio by texting questions to bands that are interviewed during the show or by viewing a studio webcam on their phones.

Orange UK director of multimedia Mark Hird said:

Its an interactive hook-up between the live radio broadcast and Orange World. Tracks will appear on Orange World as the Top 40 is announced and can be clicked on for a number of options including ringtones and track downloads. It is an interactive model that will be more fully fleshed out with 3G.

Orange users can follow the chart countdown on their mobile phone taking advantage of various downloadable and interactive services while listening to it on their radios.

Listening to the radio is the preferred situation for using WAP mobile services according to Hird.

This will become a powerful mechanism. We are aiming at the audience that tunes in to the Top 40 on Sunday afternoon and then uses their mobile handset. The Top 40 is the biggest music chart show in the UK.

Research shows that most customers use WAP services in that downtime.

He concluded: Were looking at a very broad market in the run-up to Christmas who are already familiar with these types of handsets and services on 2.5G. Hopefully well be introducing them to some new services.

Glen Manoff head of communications at O2 UK said:

The paging business is a legacy from the BTCellnet days. And frankly it is very small – there are just over 100000 users. It is not making any money and there are alternatives whether it is simple SMS or an e-mail device such as the BlackBerry. Over the past six to eight months we have been persuading our pager customers to move over to mobile.

The popularity of SMS has forced the pager business into decline and O2 reckons that it more than any other network has championed the technology.

We are big believers in messaging said Manoff.

We have something like a third of the text market and just under a quarter of network market share as a whole so we are very successful.

Nearly three-quarters of a billion messages are sent across our network each month. It is because we have put so much focus on the youth market and others and made it easier to tailor texts to usage with our Bolt-Ons.

Participants will receive 16 TV channels covering music sport news comedy soaps documentary drama cartoons and special interests.

O2 chief technology officer Dave Williams said: This trial allows us to evaluate a delivery mechanism to complement our planned 3G mobile music and video services.

(See Business Watch P12)

Having spent the past two years as CEO of MobileWay Shaw starts the new job in January. Current marketing director Cath Keers will continue as marketing director until January. She will then become customer director in which post she will represent the customer at a board level.

An O2 spokesman said: We aspire to put ourselves in the league of leading brands such as First Direct Starbucks and Amazon. To do that the whole area of our customer experience has to be championed at board level.

Cath agreed with [O2 UK CEO] David McGlade to take on the role of customer director. She has been unable to do that job fully until we found a new marketing director.

At the moment Cath is doing both jobs. But the right calibre candidate is now in place and Cath will be able to concentrate full time on her role as customer director from January.

McGlade said: These new appointments bring extensive experience and will underpin the continued development of O2 as a great brand underpinned by great marketing.

Harvard business graduate Shaw also held senior marketing and commercial roles with American Express Charles Schwab and NTL.

Shaw said: I am pleased to be taking over as O2s marketing director during this exciting time for the business. I hope to maintain O2s marketing momentum through fresh thinking innovation and value to the customer.

With prices starting from 55 a month Orange Premier subscribers can have a dedicated customer services team – phone consultants who will visit them at home work or in an Orange shop to help get the most from their phone.

They will also get a choice of 400 700 or 1000 cross-network minutes 24-hour phone replacement upgrades at the nine-month mark rather than each year as well as free access to 300 e-mails (without attachments) from their handsets each month.

Orange Care phone insurance which normally costs 5 per month for 12 months cover is included in the package as well as Memory Mate a service to back-up contacts and data stored on a SIM card. This normally costs a one-off 2.99.

Orange Premier marketing manager Simeon Bird commented:

High-value customers see relevant extra services as crucial when making the decision to purchase.

A superior level of service is something that they value immensely he added.

Dedicated customer services teams will answer calls immediately and deal with most queries in one call.

The launch will be closely supported with a print-based advertising campaign.

The free software can be downloaded by a company or by individuals. It adds a Text Centre option to the handsets e-mail in-box menu. Customers pay for the messages they send on their monthly phone bill.

Kyle Whitehill enterprise business unit director for Vodafone UK said:

Vodafone Text Centre will provide our business customers with a simple fast and secure way to communicate short information.

We see it as a good way to increase ARPU.

City analyst Nathan Budd a consultant in Frost & Sullivans ICT practice broadly welcomed the move. He said: PC-based SMS capabilities will add growth to the overall SMS market.

Richard Mugnaioni formerly with HP IBM and Xerox has been appointed managing director of strategic business.

Mike Powell a director in CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation) has joined Unique as a non-executive board member.

Unique joint-MD Rob Lees said:

Richard [Mugnaioni] has come in to oversee the day-to-day operations so that myself [joint-MD] Angus Dawe and [MD of business development] Michael Richardson can concentrate on growing the business. It is refreshing to bring someone in from outside the industry with fresh and different views. Mike Powell has joined the board to provide non-executive guidance and a totally objective view on the company.

Lees added: We are looking at over 200 million turnover this year which is a significant increase on last year. Staff turnover is very low because of the good team spirit. Were constantly increasing the headcount. We now have over 130 permanent members of staff and up to 50 temps at any one time. The UK mobile market is extremely advan-ced and we are looking at developing some satellite operations abroad. We currently do a lot of business overseas.

Lees would not be drawn on further details of Uniques programme of expansion. Mugnaioni is a specialist in organisational restructuring according to Lees and will take responsibility for the day-to-day management of Uniques existing business units. Powell is responsible for growing business in the banking and insurance market.

Lees said: It is part of the continuing expansion of the business in all areas. All businesses need to strengthen their management from time-to-time. And any business that grows must reorganise things occasionally. The new appointments not only support the business as it is now but underpin our plans for continuing growth.

Existing senior management roles remain largely unchanged but Mike Richardson takes over as managing director of Uniques development business. His areas of responsibility will include games WAP for IT and e-commerce.

Caroline Preston will take charge of Uniques retail business and Ian Hicks will head up the Virtual Manufacturing unit. Unique is an authorised distributor for all six networks and manufacturers Nokia Samsung Sony Ericsson Motorola Siemens Panasonic VK Mobile NEC Sendo Sagem and ITech.

See White Lines page 48

It will be the first major LG mobile marketing campaign in the UK and the biggest LG campaign since 1999.

Commercials will appear on terrestrial and Sky TV in the six week run-up to Christmas.

The campaign will be product-led with the launch of the LG u8150 on Orange and the LG u8138 on 3. The TV campaigns focus on the 8100 series phones.

LG will launch the LG u8150 3G handset an updated version of the LG u8130 with more memory and a revised design on Orange this month.

LG UK marketing manager for mobile John Bernard dismissed a BBC Radio 2 report that Orange has postponed its 3G launch until the new year:

We have got our launch of the LG u81150 this month. The launch of Orange 3G is imminent. The phones are in.

We have delivered all the handsets to the networks already.

The u8138 will be available on 3 from early November. LG is also to release the LG u2200 and the 1.2 megapixel LG u5100 expected to compete with the Samsung D500 on T-Mobile but neither of these handsets will be supported by consumer advertising on the same scale.

We will spend even more in 2005 said Bernard. This is just a springboard. We want to be a top-three manufacturer worldwide and in the UK specifically by 2007.

GfK statistics for August show we had a 6.1 per cent share of the total UK market. This is phenomenal for a new entrant.

It took Samsung nearly three years to reach that. We did it in 12 months and it brings us ahead of Siemens.

Hugh Symons will distribute Sproqit Personal Edition in the UK on PalmOne Handspring Treo 600 devices.

Sproqit gives users direct access to calendar diary and full e-mail capability. Instead of relaying e-mails through a central data centre as other wireless e-mail solutions do Sproqit creates a direct link between the users PDA and office PC making the PDA a remote control for the PC.

Sproqit CEO Peter Mansour claimed corporate users want more from their mobile device than BlackBerry offers.

BlackBerry will be redundant in five years. [BlackBerry manufacturer] RIM should be running scared. There are some diehard BlackBerry fans but there is a huge market for which BlackBerry doesnt do the job he said.

There are a large number of BlackBerry users who want to use their mobile phone as well as e-mail. Our product does all these things. E-mail is only a single part of our proposition. Everything you do on your PDA will also happening in real time on your desktop said Mansour.

Sproqit only streams data to the PDA when it is requested. Otherwise only data that updates the PDA is transmitted as e-mails arrive in the users inbox. According to Mansour it means that network bandwidth is no big deal.